People who ban unverifieds for no reason are lame-o's

A troll is someone who posts inflamitory statements, usually under the escuse of 'devil's advocate', in order to start a flame war. Personally, I believe that 'Troll' doesn't come from the odious beast of myth, but from the form of fishing, meaning that the person is just dragging bait through the forum looking for people to bite.

So a forum troll is usually someone who really has nothing of benefit to addto discussions or the community in general, but instead seems to exist to cause fights and 'drahma'.



Personally, I think she can ask, but *DEMAND* is unreasonable. As has been stated quite often, land in SL is privately owned, funded, and operated. So someone who is banned from a parcel/sim really has no rights in regard to disclosure of why the action was taken. Yes, it's not a nice thing to ban someone and refuse to tell them why, but it's not illegal or against the TOS to do so.

Banning someone is the closest thing there is to a /ignore in a 3D realm such as SL. Even if you squelch their speach or trades, they can still bother you through physical or visual means. I'm sure bans that someone like the OP encounter on property they have never visited before, most likely stem from behaviour exhibited here on the forums or elsewhere in SL. Now, I'm not saying this is the case with the OP, but it is very likely that when someone's being a pain on one parcel of land, there are land owners from other parts of SL that are present and will likely forestall potential problems in the future by adding the griefer to their own ban lists. I think many griefers don't realize this, and think that screwing around in one sim will only effect that particular sim, but they never take into account who might be watching.

A troll is someone who does things like start a thread just to kick the hornets nest and see what conflict they can stir up either getting people to fight with each other or to fight with them.

ryan in the guidelines they define it as this: "Trolling (a post with an intentionally contrary opinion written with the intent of inciting or getting argumentative opinions)".

Yeah but I just eject them around my skybox.

I only have 3 people on my actal 'blacklist.'

And one of them is an alt of one of the other 2.

RBD and Ranma aren't even on there.

I just had the funniest vision of a Rube Goldbergian-Pinball setup with a generic AV bouncing around over an entire sim before being tossed out of the sim.

Hehe, I seriously looked for that option. OH WELL. Guess I better make a feature proposal.

And after having read this thread from start to end... you know, I don't know that I have learned anything but how some people seem to interact on these boards. That the thread has lasted this long with all the personal attacks shows just how flexible LL is. Perhaps too flexible.

Dragging the topic kicking and screaming back to it's original context - I think banning based on whether there is account information is practical in some cases. While apparently some people are trying to drive traffic up for 'dwell' (which I still think is very strange), I can see where this would be useless. However, as a landowner, I do see how too much traffic of people who don't have money to spend could be a problem in areas where the intent is to... make money.

That griefing continues has me looking seriously at banning based on account information. And even then, as someone who wrote sensibly already mentioned, is imperfect. So some people put in nasty devices which give you 6 seconds to get out of the unspecified area while lagging you down so that, on slower connections, you cannot do anything but enjoy the teleport home. Been there, done that. Then again, I've had people just wander into areas uninvited and annoy me as well. So it's a balance that the virtual society has to come to grips with. That's that.

Here's my general feel on all of this: I have learned in RL that being where others don't want me is not something I want. If you're banned - stay away. If you're unwelcome - stay away. If someone irritates you, mute them and ban them as necessary. Understand that this is not YOUR world, it's OUR world.

Now, if someone wants to flame me - that's fine and dandy, I won't ban you. But I will most certainly give you the respect you deserve by simply ignoring you. Be easy. And if you're too tied up in SL that you get wound up about smaller issues, maybe you need to take a SL vacation.

banning unverifieds is practical as long as all have the same opportunties to get verified. As stated in this thread about the only ones that have that opportunity across the board are americans (which rock by the way and have civil rights in the private industries ), and anyone across the ocean might have a difficult time. So possibly some understanding of that should be shown

Wrong. No one has a *right* to free access to any player-owned parcel in SL, just as land owners don't *have* to justify their ban lists to anyone. Anyone who thinks so is assuming too much about the desirability of their presence.

Here's pretty much the news flash of the day: if you get on a ban list anywhere in SL, it's probably because some part of your behavior pissed someone off somewhere and well, hey, them's the consequences. Tough times, innit?

Of course. And some understanding of the possility of being sued by lawsuit happy parents who want the person who sold their 'baby' the adult products should be understood by those who are unverified.

Thats why I ban unverified.

I'm one of the people not in the U.S, though my nationalities allow me to say that I'm an American. People in the U.S. need to begin to understand infrastructural limtations elsewhere - which certainly includes credit card availablility and Paypal's notorious service which excludes a lot of the world (I refuse to support PayPal).

One person told me it was their fault for living in underprivileged countries. But then they said they didn't like immigrants. Umm. OK. There's a mindset I don't want to understand.

Yet - there's a balance as well. Being polite is internationally acceptable. Everyone from countries outside of the US that I have met has been wonderful to talk to. Perhaps it's because the average age of those people is higher, I do not know.

There are a lot of deeper problems involved here, and the culture itself is in the process of negotiating meaning, I guess. I don't believe in screaming for equality, though. I believe in taking it.

I will apologize to unverified who are of legit age, doesn't mean Ill open myself to the risk.

Banning unverified residents doesn't really solve what it's supposed to solve, though --- it's supposed to be a tool to filter out underage kids but the reality is that you might filter out 1 kid for every 20 adults who are barred. Yes, it's better than nothing but it's far from an ideal solution.

Someone else suggested that maybe there could be a way for LL to take personal identification (faxed passports, drivers licenses, birth certificates) in lieu of payment info if residents want to show "id verified" on their profile. Right now all the flag tells us is whether they were able or willing to provide payment information. How many people in Europe and South America don't have access to a fax at a library, Kinko's or drug store?

The long term effect of this is something else no one's mentioned. If you ban unverified people, what stores/clubs will they go to if they ever do become verified? Are you alienating a segment of the resident base?


At the risk of being a broken record, griefing has very little to do with being verified. Griefers are just as likely to be older verified residents, or just alts of older residents. When the Lindens went to their MAC address capture they took one of the most effective steps they could take to stop the practice of endless freebie griefer alts. But it has nothing to do with payment verification, really.

Trolling is a term that comes from Usenet originally. It's someone who, like a fisherman, "trolls" for angry responses, by tossing out bate, designed to stir up a group, and disrupt the normal and useful conversation.

There are a number of ways to do that, which I won't list here, for fear of giving some people ideas. But it's primarily someone who posts not to participate, but to cause conflict.

Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to tell a deliberate troll from someone who's just sincere but annoying and inflamatory.

I see that a *lot* here on the forums, where the only thing that people actually have in common is that they all play SL.

Like you?

No. See, I actually add a thing called 'humor' and 'intellectual discourse.'

Dude, don't try fooling anybody. You ban everyone.

So the repetition of *whine whine* "It's my land, I OWN it nobody else is allowed at any height" isn't trolling? Because it's not humor OR intellectual discourse.

It came in handy for me last night to be able to ban with unverified as a naked noobie with nothing on but a schlong, a gun and a beer can attachment came flying into my house and asked if we could "do it".

I'm a friendly person and I like having new people drop in and feel welcome but that was just ridiculous.

I EJECT everyone near my skybox uninvited.

I ban unverified on my land.

I have a grand total of 3 explicitly banned avatars.

You've been corrected.

Not the way you paraphrase it. Now quit whining.

I didn't say anything incorrect. You ban everybody from your skybox, right?

No, I eject everyone who gets near it. No banning involved.

Well it sure incites anger in a whole lotta people. No whining here. You've been corrected!

If they can't go inside or near it, that's being banned from it.